Except for a week here and there, I have spent my American life east of the Mississippi, a hopeless tenderfoot. I recently spent another week way out west, this time in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico. As usual there was no getting over the strangeness of the place.

Here was the arid, scrubby landscape of endless vistas, looming mesas, scenic burnt sienna rocks, vast skies, serried cloud banks, the clear air, the dry brilliant light, the intensely sunny days and cool, starry nights. I caught glimpses of tumblin’ tumbleweeds and was exposed to huge stretches of sagebrush, but never did see either a roadrunner or coyote until I got to the Chuck Jones Gallery of ‘toon art in downtown Santa Fe. But I got the aesthetic appeal.

Still, it’s like being on the moon. You can’t help wondering what possessed waves of foreign invaders to fetch up here and stay, after getting a taste of life in this harsh environment. The Native-Americans in their pueblos were few in number and had evolved a minimalist fishing, hunting, farming lifestyle adapted to the place.

The Spaniards, hungry for gold or a hidalgo lifestyle unavailable at home, sought to purchase it at the expense of the subjugated Indians whom they tried to convert to Christianity and peonage. The Anglos, too, were after wealth, but except for a few of them it was hard to come by. No doubt all of this explains the endless Western contempt for soft Easterners and the libertarian strain in its politics.

Yet anti-government sentiment is ironic or oblivious to reality in an economy that still depends so heavily on the military at White Sands and elsewhere, the Los Alamos and Sandia labs, not to mention large public works to provide transportation infrastructure and the water than its more valuable than oro. A third of the state is federal land, much of it helping to provide the venue for another main economic force these days — tourism.

Hikers, bikers, skiers, climbers, hunters and fishermen, Eco tourists, spa baskers at hot springs, dudes at ranches, and dudettes at culinary classes, all flock to New Mexico. Pilgrims also come to see O’Keefe country, the basilica erected by the original of Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” the grave of D.H. Lawrence. Alas, the present day arts scene does not appear to boast any such originals.

In dozens of galleries downtown and on Canyon Road, I saw an endless array of knock-offs of previous styles — impressionists, modernist drippers and scrap metal sculptors all providing their take on Westness. Hundreds of O’Keefe imitators ape her palette, mannerisms and subject matter but lack her eye. They are painting for the haciendas of retirees in a style familiar from hotel rooms.

Frontier kitsch is everywhere. Remingtonesque bronzes of weathered cowpokes, noble savages, grizzled bison and swooping eagles abound. The myth of the West may no longer appear much in Hollywood movies, but it is omnipresent in galleries from Scottsdale to Dallas. Santa Fe is no exception. They were frequented by lean spa ladies and their plump corporate husbands. But the very presence of such persons suggests how far removed we all are from the mythic West which was dirty, brutal and lonely.

Let’s face it, the sybaritic purification rites of the spa-goers are a far cry from the spiritual rigors of the sweat lodge. “The Man with No Name” may have played a tough guy on the screen, but lived in perfumed Carmel, California closer to a golf course than the Badlands.

The other great cliché on display is cowboy chic in clothing and chica chic in jewelry. Boutiques traffic in cowboy hats, leather vests, fringed jackets, tooled boots at a prices that would have consumed a decade of cowboy wages, not to mention great, clanking silver strands of turquoise necklaces. Yet I saw very little evidence on the streets that anybody actually dressed in this fashion, only ubiquitous blue jeans, occasional everyday boots and some clunky bracelets.

I did see some jewelry that was quite elegant and even caught a glimpse of the artisan behind it. He was none other than 82-year-old former Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, leaning on a cane and discussing business with the proprietor of the jewelry store that carries his wares in Santa Fe. He made jewelry before getting into politics and is still at it.

Highlights of the trip were the nicely curated O’Keefe Museum, offering an illuminating film and enough of her work to provide a nice overvirew of her career, and the Millicent Rogers museum in Taos which introduced me to the remarkable black-on-black pottery of Pueblo artist Maria Martinez. The Bradbury Museum in Las Alamos was a bit of a letdown. I grew up in the shadow of the bomb and have read a great deal about the Manhattan Project. I found the museum a little superficial, but I enjoyed seeing the place where our nuclear nightmares were born.

All in all, this corner of the world was a pleasant place to visit, but like much of the West it seemed precarious. It is an enclave of wealth in a poor state. A spa in the midst of aridity. An economy dependent on government, extraction and tourism. A social hierarchy that replicates the bad old days of the Spanish Empire, a bit of wealth at the top, a lot of peonage below. A trifle more climate change and the whole place seems as if it could become uninhabitable.

Lagniappe: One art that I was pleased, plumply, to enjoy was the entirely admirable culinary tradition of New Mexico. I had heard that the local food was similar to, but different from, Mexican or Tex-Mex and that was true. Much of the difference is apparently due to a strain of chilies native to the neighborhood. The Hatch, New Mexico chilies are coveted and none of the raves seemed exaggerated after trying the reality. We ate ourselves silly at Orlando’s and El Meze in Taos, Pasqual’s and Casa Chimayo in Santa Fe, enjoying tortilla soup, blue corn enchiladas, pork adobada, cilantro rice, rich black beans, buffalo meat tamales, Hatch green chili sauce, tomatillo sauce, fiery caribe sauce and, for those imbibing, Agave wine margaritas. For enjoyable artistry, the work of these chefs (or concineros) put to shame the productions of the local daubers and welders.